ETTING 
OME 
O 
LFANDRA
Shady's Tail, Er, Tale chapter 4 - Enlightenment
ETTING OME O LFANDRA
"Hey, you gonna sleep all day?"
Shady wakes up with Lave shaking him, he looks up at the sun and guesses it's almost noon. "Sorry, didn't sleep well." They gathered their things and headed southwest. During their hike Shady took some time to look at some of the wildlife. There were some of the strangest green creatures, shaped like a C, with a single eye and a pair of wings on their back. The wings seemed too small to actually enable them flight, but they appeared to have no trouble at all hovering off the ground. "What are those things?" he asks.
"Those? Green Tupids, long ago they were said to be good luck to any who saw them. You need to watch out for the red ones, they're aggressive, and thats puttin git lightly. If you ever see a blue one, run. Blue Tupids can only be damaged by some really powerful spell. I never studied magic so I couldn't tell you which. There was also stories of a Black Tupid, but no one has seen it in years so it just faded into rumor, then myth, then all but forgotten."
Lave continued to explain more of the various critters around here. Splats and Plops sounded amusing but not dangerous by any definition of the word. Noticing Shady's interest in what he was saying Lave decided to bring up something different. "Look over there." Pointing to the east where a wall of darkness stood, resembling the gap in appearance except it was black. "That's the All Concealing Shadows, there used to be another world outside this one. This other world was a world of darkness. Everything was twisted and warpped. It was not the ideal vacation spot, but should anyone choose to go there, thats how they started." He explained while looking at the shadows. "Once the Heroes came and purified that world it kinda fell apart, unexpectedly. We thought that with that world gone, the gateway would poof too. Nope, it's still here. Some people think that some of the monsters from that world fled to the Shadows. No one knows for sure, of course."
The two walked in silence the rest of the way until they came too a towering wall. From inside there was a lot of noise. Shady easily guessed where they were. They entered through the main gates and Lave spoke up. "Well this is good bye, take care of yourself Gary."
"See you around Lave, stay well." The two parted ways and Shady was alone again. *First I need to find out about this rock, Lave said I should talk to some scholors about the story too.* Shady wandered the city for hours in awe at such a enormous place. He finally grabbed someones attention. "Can you tell me where I can find some information?" The person pointed to a building in the distance and went on his way. "Thanks!" Shady ran toward the structure marveling at its marble steps and statues arranged around it. The statues were of about a dozen people, each looking very dignified but also with a look on their faces as if they wouldn've prefered a less formal pose. He entered the building and found it was a school of some kind. The smell of books hung thick in the air and many people went about their business. Shady found someone who looked less busy than the rest. "Excuse me, can you tell me what this is?" He says holding out the small stone. The person looks up from his book as with a look of disgust at being disturbed then his eyes fall onto the rock and his jaw falls wide open.
"Wh.. wha.. where.. where did you find that?"
He finally managed to get out. Shady begins explaining about how he got
here starting with getting sucked through the portal from Alfandra.
The man listens with great interest but doesn't comment until Shady finishes.
"Phew, that was a long story. I can't believe the stone would glow
for you, typically when someone touches a holy stone it just... oh you
already said your friend touched it. Hmm, well let me see it again."
Shady holds the stone out and it glows as it always does. "Well what
you have there is the Brown Happyrock, if I recall correctly it's power
was to guide the user to what he or she seeks. I studied the last
days of the Great War, thuroughly. Including the 12 Heroes who fought
in it." The man becomes lost in thought for a minute. "Come
with me." He leads Shady outside back to
the statues. "These are the Heroes, I still remember when we asked
them to come here to get these statues made in their honor. Over
here is Gary, the Goldhero. I belive his power was mastery of happyrocks
and lightning." He looks back at Shady and notices the blank look
on his face. "Mastery of happyrocks means he could use the powers
of any of the rocks he has used before, without actually having the stone
with him, he would just call out the color he needed. Mastery of lightning
meant he could cast any lightning based spell without any difficulty, no
matter how complex the spell was." He took his glasses off and cleaned
them with his sleeve. "You say that you somehow knew how to cast
Thunder? I find that hard to swallow, even Gary couldn't cast it
without having the source of his power.
You see these Heroes each had a small circle with them, the circle was
a little smaller than the stone you have, it had their initial embeded
in it. When they used the circles it increased their powers tremendously.
Without them, well they were only barely stronger than the average person."
"So how does explain what I was able to do?" Shady asked not too skeptically. The man clears his throat and puts his glasses back on.
"Well, it doesn't, in fact only the most powerful of wizards could ever use Thunder, while Gary was going above and beyond them. Near as I can tell there must be something about you that you can draw more power to use in magic than most people." Shady, had figured it out. Since he was a dragon he was stronger than the average person and able to generate more energy to use in spells of this kind. Though he couldn't tell this guy that, he at least had answered one question. "I wonder... if that rock will glow for you, and since you seem to have similar powers to Gary, perhaps if you find his cirlce you could use it to get home. Just cast Send on yourself and set your mind to where ever this 'Alfandra' is, you'll be back there in no time flat. Now then you wanted to know about the Great War? Lets go back inside so I can use my notes." He smiled and they two went back to where they had met. He picked up a mess of papers and started flipping through them. "Here we go, long ago there were 2 worlds in this universe. One of light and one of darkness. It was all part of balance, until one day the world of darkness began growing. It litteraly was getting bigger. As it did, many different monsters began coming out of it into this world. Some looked like living shadows, they had no physical substance and absolutely no depth, looking at one from the side was pointless. The world of light was being ravaged and none were able to stand against this army of shadows. Until 12 heroes made an unexplanable entrance to this world. They described it as traveling through a 'hippyish' tunnel until they popped out here. These Heroes fought back the armies of darkness all the way into it's own world. There they defeated it and used a legendary weapon the 'Light Render' to purge the entire world of evil. For reasons we still don't know the world colapsed right after that. After saving this world the Heroes said they would return if there was ever a need for them and the all left."
Shady seemed almost interested in this history lesson, but was more intrigued by the concept of living shadows. He thanked the man for all his help and left to find an Inn, or some place to spend the night. It was already dark out and he was tired. He gave up on this searched and went outside town. Looking around to make sure that no one else was near he changed back to his dragon form. "Ahhh, this feels much better." He curled up under the stars and went to sleep pondering all he'd learned today.